Most pricing guides are written for the person paying. This one is written for the person doing the work. Build the number properly first, then check it against what the market is actually paying in 2026.
Five steps, in this order. Doing them out of order is the single most common reason a busy trade business makes no money.
How many days on site, honestly, including the half day nobody counts for setting up and clearing away. Multiply by your real day rate. If you do not know what that should be, work it out from your target income and expenses rather than from what the last bloke charged.
You carried the cost, drove to the merchant and warranty the result, so materials carry a markup. Somewhere between 10% and 25% is normal in the trades. Passing them on at cost is not generosity, it is working for nothing on a third of the job.
Certificates, notifications, test results, photographs and the phone call explaining it all. On a consumer unit swap that is easily an hour and a Part P fee. It is part of the job, so it goes in the price rather than coming out of your evening.
Ten percent on anything involving an existing building. You will find the surprise. The customer will not accept that the surprise was free, and they should not have to, but you will feel much better having quietly covered it.
Once you have a number built from your own costs, compare it with the typical figures below. If yours is way over, look at your day count. If yours is way under, and it usually is, put it up.
| Board, RCBOs and SPD at cost | £220 |
| Materials markup at 20% | £44 |
| One day on site at a £320 day rate | £320 |
| Testing, certificate and Part P notification | £90 |
| Contingency at 10% | £67 |
| Price to quote | £741 |
That lands at the bottom of the typical £750 to £1,200 range, which tells you the build up is sound and there is room in it. Round it to £750 and you are priced honestly with the market.
Now price the same job at £550 because somebody in a Facebook group said that sounds about right. You have covered the board and paid yourself roughly £250 for a day, then carried all the risk if a circuit fails its test. Do that fifty times a year and the gap is close to £10,000 of profit that never existed.
National figures. London and the South East run 20% to 30% higher, the North East, Wales and Northern Ireland sit below.
There is always somebody cheaper and they are usually about to go out of business. Competing with them means inheriting their margin and, eventually, their outcome. Compete on turning up when you said you would, which almost nobody does.
Two hours of driving and measuring for a job you had a one in three chance of winning is a real cost that has to sit somewhere. It sits in the price of the jobs you do win. Build it in or stop quoting jobs an hour away.
The cheap quote that says "rewire, £4,800" and nothing else is how disputes start. Write what is in and what is out. It costs ten minutes and it is the difference between a variation and an argument.
Most trades price the next job on a feeling about the last one. Track labour and materials against the quote for three months and you will find at least one job type you have been losing money on for years.
Figures compiled July 2026 and quoted excluding VAT unless stated. Prices in this trade move, so treat them as a benchmark rather than a rate card.
Traddie tracks labour and materials against every quote, so at the end of the month you can see the job types worth chasing and the ones quietly costing you.